Mara was furious.

Mara was so furious that she hadn't stopped pacing on the same spot of her cell for at least an hour. She imagined that if she was one of those old cartoons they used to show on Earth her face would be bright red, steam would be coming out of her ears and she would be walking a hole into the ground.

"Mara," she heard a male voice groan from the cell next to hers. "You have got to calm down. I can hear you pacing from in here!"

"No. I can't calm down," Mara seethed. "Some fucking idiot had the bright idea to go on an illegal spacewalk and waste three fucking months of our oxygen! And now they're floating all terminally ill patients to save on resources," she paused, feeling anger boil through her veins. "Save on resources my ass! Everyone knows that the oxygen's not going to last forever and that fucker, whoever he is, just wasted three months of it!"

Mara hadn't stopped pacing the entire time she was talking to the boy in the next cell. Her pace only increased as she grew angrier and angrier. She grunted in annoyance but knew that he wouldn't be able to hear her.

"Why do you even care?"

Mara stopped her pacing abruptly and faced the wall the voice was hidden behind.

"My mom's terminally ill, Nathan," Mara muttered just loud enough for him to hear her.

Mara heard him whistle quietly, followed by a groan of 'shit'. Mara rolled her eyes and continued pacing, her speed increasing.

The two had discovered that they could hear each other one month after Mara's incarceration when she had overheard him singing. She had given him a compliment, hoping that he would be able to hear her. Nathan had been so shocked at hearing a voice coming out of nowhere that he thought he had momentarily gone mad. He had tentatively answered her and they had both been so happy that they could hear each other that they have spoken every day since. Mara and Nathan had an unusual friendship given that they had never even seen each other nor even been in the same room, they only knew what the other sounded like. Nevertheless, they quickly became friends since there was no one else to talk to. They had both tried to speak to the people on the other side of their walls but had never gotten any response; they figured that the other cells were empty.

"Maybe they won't float your mom," Nathan suggested, trying to calm Mara down but he managed to hear her scoff at his words.

"Terminally ill, Nathan," Mara groaned and flung herself onto her bed.

She instantly regretted flinging herself so harshly when she smacked her hip bone off of the almost rock hard mattress. She heard Nathan do the same on the other side of the wall and she turned her head to where she knew his bed was.

"Do you think they'll let me see her again? You know, before they float her?" Mara almost whispered. When they were this close they did not have to speak as loudly.

"Who, your mom?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know," Nathan's reply filtered through the wall. "I hope they let you."

"Yeah, me to," Mara rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling she had spent her nights and days looking at for the past few months.

Mara had seen her father three times and her mother only once since her imprisonment. Her father had been angry the first time he visited her, he had even mentioned trying to break her out (though Mara was sure that he was joking, a small part of her thought that he had been serious). Every time he visited her, he brought news of her mother's condition and each update was worse than the last. It seemed that her mother was barely holding on. Mara had been shocked to see the condition her mother was in when she had visited. Her mother no longer had a full figure, her bones were visible through her skin and her eyes looked sunken into her skull. Her once voluminous wavy hair hung limply around her face and Mara had never seen her mother's skin so pale. Her mother looked like a walking skeleton.

Mara wasn't angry that her mother was dying; she had accepted that a long time ago. She was upset that the Council had made the decision to end her mother's life before her time without even asking for her mother's permission. They were executing her for being sick.

"Nathan?" Mara hoped that he hadn't fallen asleep.

"Yeah?" She smiled slightly at hearing his muffled sleepy reply.

"Thanks," she told him, her voice filled with sincerity.

"For what?" Mara laughed at the obvious confusion in his voice.

"Thanks, for being my friend."

"Any time Mara, any time."

She heard him chuckle before they slowly lapsed into silence, lost in their own thoughts. Though Mara thought that Nathan would have just fallen asleep and, sure enough, Nathan's snores soon reached Mara through the metal wall. Mara rolled her eyes at the wall. She couldn't believe that it had taken her a whole month to hear his snoring but now she couldn't ignore it, not that she wanted to. She would often tease him about his snoring but never let him know that it actually brought her comfort sometimes. Hearing him snoring let her know that she wasn't completely alone.

She knew that she wouldn't be getting much sleep that night, there were too many thoughts racing through her head. She didn't want to be angry at the Spacewalker, after all, how could he have known that this would be the consequences of his actions? But she couldn't believe that someone would be so stupid to believe that they could go on an illegal spacewalk without someone finding out. Then again, Mara thought, how could I think that I would get away with stealing morphine?

She tilted her head back slightly so that she could see the stars from her window but even they couldn't bring her the comfort they normally did. She had spoken to Nathan about the stars and found out that his cell didn't have a window. She couldn't even begin to imagine how dull his cell must be. Her cell was boring enough as it was but she couldn't imagine not having the window as some form of distraction. Mara often described what she could see for Nathan when he was bored, she told him the stories her mother told her about the stars. The mythology behind Coma Berenices was her favorite. When she was a child she always hated getting her hair cut so her mother would tell her the story of Queen Berenice II of Egypt. The Queen cut off her hair as an offering to Aphrodite as a thank you for returning her husband home safe from a war. Aphrodite was so pleased with the offering that she took the hair into the heavens and the Coma Berenices constellation was created. Mara would pretend that she was the Queen and that cutting her hair would keep her family safe. It was the only way her mother could get her to sit still.

At some point during the night, Mara had managed to calm her mind long enough to fall asleep; though her sleep didn't last long as she was awoken sporadically throughout the night.

She was awoken for the last time by a loud knocking on her cell door before it was flung open and two guards entered her cell. Mara rubbed at her eyes and squinted at the harsh light that was streaming into her cell.

"Stand and face the wall Prisoner 117," one of the guards commanded, his deep voice chilling the air.

"What's going on?" Mara mumbled, sleep still heavily present in her voice.

The guard repeated his command and Mara slowly complied with his demands. She felt him come up behind her and put her in handcuffs. She was beginning to panic. she looked over her shoulder at the second guard who looked only slightly older than Mara herself. Must be a cadet, Mara thought and noticed that the young guard was looking around the cell, her face filled with curiosity.

"What's going on?" Mara directed her question at the young guard who looked at the man holding Mara's arm for permission to speak.

"We're talking you to say goodbye to your mother before she's floated. I'm so sorry," the female guard's eyebrows were furrowed and her lips downturned. Her voice was filled with sincerity as she spoke.

Mara felt herself grow cold and felt like her heart had stopped beating. She had only been told the day before that her mother would be floated, and she hadn't had the time to properly process what was going to happen. She took a deep breath and tried to repress the nerves that were building inside of her. Her hands had begun shaking slightly and the male guard loosened his hold on her arm slightly, not wanting to scare her.

The trio walked out of the cell together and the cadet shut the door behind them. The bang resounded through the Sky Box and Mara felt like her legs had turned to jelly and she found it difficult to walk down the stairs without tripping. She cast a glance at the cadet who offered her a sad smile. Mara felt her blood boil looking at the smile. She knew that the cadet was simply doing her job but she couldn't help the sudden rage that coursed through her body. She was angry that they were floating her mother. She was angry that she had to ask what was happening before someone told her. She was angry that the first time she was going to see her mother in months was the day that she was going to die.

The smile dropped off of the cadet's face when she saw the fire that suddenly blazed behind Mara's eyes and the way that her jaw clenched. The cadet quickly looked away and Mara turned to face forward as they marched along the corridor. The fluorescent lights were harsh against Mara's eyes but she couldn't bring herself to care that she hadn't been in somewhere so bright since her imprisonment. They kept the lights in the Sky Box dimmer than anywhere else in the ark to preserve energy.

The guard holding Mara came to a halt in front of a set of automatic double doors and Mara glared at the figures she could see through the glass of the doors. She could make out Kane standing next to the floatation chamber and Chancellor Jaha standing across from him, a grim-looking guard stood by his side. Mara's gaze softened when she spotted her father holding onto her mother as if his life depended on keeping her in his arms. Even from the distance she was standing at, Mara could see the tears glistening on her father's cheek.

The doors swung open and Mara was marched into the room. She wanted to run straight for her mother, to hold her in her arms and to never let go. The anger that had fuelled Mara disappeared as she took in her mother's broken form. The woman was slumped into her husband as if she could barely hold herself up. Her lips twitched upwards in an attempted smile when she spotted Mara but she could only manage a small grimace.

"Take the handcuffs off," Chancellor Jaha ordered but Mara couldn't bring herself to look at him, knowing that if she did her anger would only ignite once more.

Mara felt the cold metal being removed from her wrists and didn't wait for permission to cross the room before she sprinted to her mother. Her mother moved from her father's arms to embrace her daughter. The two clung to each other and Mara gripped her mother to her so tight that her knuckles turned white.

"Mom…" she choked on her words as her throat closed up.

"I know, I know sweetheart," her mother tried to soothe her but the woman's voice was shaking. "It's okay. Everything is going to be okay."

"N-no, it's n-not," Mara whispered and buried her face further into the crook of her mother's neck.

Mara felt her father's hand on her back and soon the small, broken family were clutching each other as their tears took over. Mara's mother was the first to let go. She placed her hands on either side of Mara's face and wiped the tears away with her thumbs.

"My brave, brave girl," the woman smiled brokenly. "I love you so, so much. I am so incredibly proud of the young woman you've become." She touched her forehead to Mara's and the two stood in silence, breathing each other in.

"M-mom…" Mara shook her head against her mother's and the woman pulled back to place a kiss on her daughter's head.

Mara closed her eyes, not wanting to let go of her mother when she felt a hand slip into hers. She looked down at her hand and noticed that her mother was placing something into her clenched hand. Mara opened her fingers and found that her mother had given Mara her necklace. It was a small metal star attached to a thin chain. Mara's father had given it to her mother as a gift when they found out they were going to have her.

Mara felt the tears spill over her eyes once more and she nodded her head and gave her mother a tight-lipped smile. The woman returned the gesture and swiped her thumb over her daughter's cheek.

"That's enough," Kane's voice broke the silence in the chamber.

Mara's mother turned to her husband and placed a kiss on his cheek and took a weak step away from her family. Her husband and daughter stared at her with tear-filled eyes.

"May we meet again," the woman nodded to the small family she was leaving behind.

"May we meet again, Maddy."

"May we meet again, mom."

Mara's father put his arm around her shaking shoulder's and gave her a light squeeze, hoping to give her some form of comfort.

"May we meet again Madeline Gorman," Jaha spoke quietly to the sick woman as he led her through a set of glass doors, where she was to be floated.

Mara clutched the star necklace to her chest as silent tears continued to stream from her eyes. She couldn't bring herself to lift her shaking hand to her cheek to wipe them away so she let them drip onto the metal floor. She locked eyes with her mother and couldn't stand to watch her die. She ripped herself from her father's hold and ran towards her mother but the Chancellor had already exited the chamber and the doors shut themselves just as Mara reached them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jaha shake his head as a guard started forward to pull Mara back. Mara tried to steady her hand as she placed it on the glass separating her from her mother.

She vaguely heard Chancellor Jaha give the order to float her mother. The doors behind her mother, leading into outer space, were opened and her mother was sucked into the void. One minute she was standing in front of Mara's eyes and the next she was gone, vanishing without a trace as if she had never existed.

A sob burst from Mara's throat as she crumbled to the ground, her hand squeaking as it slid down the glass. She felt her father's arms wrap around her trembling body and she grabbed onto him as if he was the only thing keeping her rooted in place. Father and daughter clung to each other on the floor as they mourned their loss.

"Take her back to the Sky Box," she heard Kane order. "And confiscate that," he gestured towards the necklace hanging down from between Mara's quivering fingers.

The guard that had escorted her from her cell hauled her to her feet from her father's arms and reached for the necklace. Mara clutched it to her chest, fire blazing in her eyes. She was not going to let them take the one thing she had left of her mother without a fight. The guard gave her a look of warning not to resist him but she stood her ground even though she was exhausted from watching her mother die.

"Enough!" Jaha's voice boomed through the small room. "Let her keep it."

"But Chancellor-" Kane tried to interrupt but Jaha raised his hand to silence the man.

"Let her keep the necklace," his voice full of authority as he directed his order to the guard who nodded his head in acceptance.

The guard quickly stepped behind her back and restrained her arms once more. Mara had never seen her father more broken as he watched his daughter being handcuffed. He shakily rose from the ground and wrapped his arms around his daughter. He held the back of her head in his hand and Mara tucked her head into his chest. She wanted nothing more than to be able to hug him back.

"Take her away," Kane's voice grated on Mara's nerves and she had never hated anyone as much as she hated him at that moment.

She glared at Kane but he merely quirked an eyebrow and stared her down until she was pulled from her father's arms and marched out of the room. She looked back at her father and saw him standing alone, his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. She had never seen anyone so hopeless looking and the sight shattered her already broken heart.

She barely noticed the walk back to her cell. Her tears blurred everything into a mess of grey and her heart beat loudly in her ears. She couldn't focus on anything other than her feet and the necklace clasped in her hand.

She was surprised by how quickly they reached her cell but then again, she hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings at all. She soon found herself standing in the middle of her cell with the door banging closed loudly behind her. Her cell was too quiet. Every little noise she made was amplified and her heart sounded like a war drum pounding in her ears. Her breathing was shallow as she tried to suck air into her lungs but there was nothing she could do. Her head thumped painfully as she gasped for breath. She vaguely heard Nathan's voice speaking to her but he sounded like he was at the far end of a very long tunnel. She sank to the floor and clutched her head in her hands, the image of her mother vanishing replaying over and over again. A strangled sob escaped from her throat and she curled herself into a ball on the cold ground, letting the tears wrack her body.

"Mara!" She could just about hear Nathan's panicked voice breaching through the wall. "Mara? Come on Mara, talk to me. Tell me what's going on," his voice was strained as he tried to reach his friend, the only friend he had in such a lonely place.

Mara couldn't answer him. Her throat was too closed up for her to make any sound other than choking and she wouldn't have known what to say to him even if she could speak. "Oh, hey Nathan. Everything's swell! I just watched my mother get floated. It's a wonderful day isn't it," just didn't seem right. As the thought passed through her head, her sobs increased and sent shock waves through her tired body.

"Mara, listen to me. Okay, thump the wall if you can hear me."

Through her clouded mind, Mara registered his instructions and she pulled herself along the floor to the wall that separated their cells. That small journey alone exhausted her body even more and she barely had enough energy to lift her fist and hit it off the wall once.

"Okay, can you see out of the window?" Nathan's voice was calm but Mara could sense the underlying panic in his tone.

"Y-y-yes," Mara managed to stutter out.

"Okay, okay, good. I want you to start counting the stars for me. You got that? Start counting the stars."

Mara hit her hand against the wall to let him know she had heard him. She moved her gaze the window and tried to see through her blurry vision. She picked a star and tried to focus her gaze on it.

"Have you found a star?" She thumped her fist against the wall again. "Okay, that's the first star. Say it with me: one."

"O-one."

"Now the next one. Find another star."

"Two…two," Mara murmured.

"Keep going, keep going until you've counted all the stars you can see," Nathan gently commanded.

Mara nodded her head, her breathing gradually returning to normal as she continued counting. She eventually lost track of what number she was on as her sobs subsided and turned into silent, slow falling tears.

She leaned her back against the cell wall and fell silent. She could hear Nathan slumping down on his side of the wall and the two sat in silence for the longest time. Mara refused to let her mind wander to her mother and her father so she unsteadily clasped the star necklace around her neck where it would hang out of sight. She picked a spot on the floor that was slightly darker than the rest and stared at. She felt her heart beat progressively return to a normal rate and she tapped her finger against her thigh, keeping to the rhythm set by her heart. She sucked in a deep breath and slowly exhaled it. She repeated this ten times before she rolled her head into her shoulder and rubbed her eyes with her left hand. She blanched at the heat beneath her fingertips and knew that her eyes must have been red, her nose itched and her head throbbed painfully. She took a shaky breath and closed her eyes for a moment.

"How're you doing Mara?" She heard Nathan tentatively ask.

In truth, Mara didn't know how she was doing. Every part of her ached, her limbs felt like they had been stretched in opposite directions and her head felt like someone had been throwing stones at it. She couldn't close her eyes for longer than a second without the image of her mother invading her mind. She couldn't bear the image she had of her father standing alone with no one there to tell him that everything was going to be okay, that his world hadn't completely ended. He had had his wife die and his daughter taken away from him again on the same day. Mara couldn't handle the thought of her father returning to their empty home, seeing his empty bed, not hearing the sound of Mara laughing or rambling about one thing or another. Much like Mara, he would sit in an empty room, alone with his thoughts. The only difference was that Mara, at least, had Nathan to calm her down. So when Nathan asked her how she was doing, she had no proper response for him

"They floated my mom."

"I know."

Mara was glad that he didn't say that he was sorry, or offer her any condolences. She didn't need someone to offer her their sympathies. She just needed someone to be there for her, to let her sit in silence and just offer a comforting presence. Nathan quickly realised this and the two sat in silence with their backs pressed against the wall that separated them. Nathan waited for Mara to say something, anything, to let him know that she was going to be okay. Mara waited for the world to make sense again.